Turner Sports Acquisition Of UEFA Champions League Rights Means More Than Just A Broadcaster Change

On Thursday, Turner Sports and UEFA made it official. Starting next September and for three seasons thereafter the English-language US broadcaster of the Champions League and the Europa League will be Turner.

It surprised many that Turner bid for the product let alone that they won the rights. Fox Sports and a predecessor Fox Soccer acquired the rights from ESPN for the 2009/10 season and had held the rights since.

Last season’s final between Juventus and Real Madrid attracted a combined audience of 3m viewers to Fox Sports and Fox Deportes.

Real Madrid's defender Sergio Ramos holds up the trophy celebrating the team's win on Plaza Cibeles in Madrid on June 4, 2017, after the UEFA Champions League final (Photo credit OSCAR DEL POZO/AFP/Getty Images)

Turner will pay around $65M annually to broadcast the UEFA properties while Univision is expected to chip in another $35M for the Spanish-language rights. The combined payment will be close to twice what Fox paid over the last rights-cycle.

Thursday’s announcement included the following information:

• Turner will present more than 340 UEFA matches per season across the company’s television and digital platforms.

• Live matches will also be regularly televised across the likes of TBS and TNT throughout the length of the deal.

• Champions League semi-finals and final along with the Europa League final will be televised on TBS or TNT

• Europa League matches leading to the final will be available through the sports platform.

Turner will broadcast four Champions League matches live from each round of play through the group stage that runs from September to December with kick off times at 13:00 and 15:00 ET. For the knock out rounds, two games will be broadcast on Tuesday and Wednesday each week at 15:00 ET.

All other matches will be made available by subscription to a new sports platform that will be launched next year. The platform will be accessible by way of the Bleacher Report.

The stand-alone sports streaming video service will be the third such streaming service to be offered by Turner.

Just a week ago ESPN announced that it too is getting into the streaming business.

Over ten years ago Chris Anderson wrote an article for WIRED that expounded on a theory he termed the Long Tail.

Part of Anderson’s theory was that as the cost of distributing online fell, more companies would be able to monetize less popular offerings.

“One example of this is the theory's prediction that demand for products not available in traditional bricks and mortar stores is potentially as big as for those that are. But the same is true for video not available on broadcast TV on any given day, and songs not played on radio. In other words, the potential aggregate size of the many small markets in goods that don't individually sell well enough for traditional retail and broadcast distribution may someday rival that of the existing large market in goods that do cross that economic bar.”Chris Anderson – The Long Tail

After all, Real Madrid versus Manchester United in the Champions League automatically draws a tremendous viewership but what of Celtic versus say Olympiakos.

Both teams have a passionate fans base around the world and in the US. Turner is banking that the fans of clubs such as these will sign up to the streaming service in order to watch their favorites.

A decade from now, don’t be surprised if the subscription-based streaming model becomes the de facto standard for sports viewing.

Have to wonder if we've moved a big step closer to a World Cup where you have to pay extra $49.99 to see every game. https://t.co/6qctoP0r8U